Mr. Justice HARLAN, dissenting.
In an action brought in the supreme court of New York by John S. Prouty against the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Company and others to compel the specific performance of a certain contract, it was adjudged, January 26, 1878, that the company pay the plaintiff out of its net earnings $53,184.88, 'together with interest thereon from the entry of said judgment.' It was also adjudged that if the company, within a time specified, failed to pay to the plaintiff the above principal sum 'and such interest,' the plaintiff might have execution therefor against the defendant. Judgment was also entered in plaintiff's favor for $1,437.73 for his costs and allowance in the action.
By the statutes of New York in force when this judgment was rendered 7 per cent. was the legal rate of interest. It was provided that 'overy judgment shall bear interest from the time of perfecting the same;' that is, 'from the time when it is entered.' Laws 1844, c. 324; 1 Rev. St. N. Y. p. 771, pt. 2, c. 4, tit. 3; Laws 1877, c. 417, pp. 468, 477. It was also provided that, 'whenever a judgment shall be rendered, and execution shall be issued thereon, it shall be lawful to direct, upon such execution, the collection of interest upon the amount recovered, from the time of recovering the same until such amount be paid.'
Execution was issued on the above judgment, and, by written indorsement upon it, the sheriff was directed to collect thereon $54,622.61, (which was the aggregate amount, principal and costs, adjudged in favor of the plaintiff,) with interest at 7 per it competent for the legislature, by the act of 1879, which took effect January 1, 1880, of 1879, which took effect january 1, 1880, to reduce to 6 per cent. the interest collectible, after its passage, on the above judgment? I think it was not, and therefore dissent from the opinion and judgment of the court.
It may be conceded, for the purposes of this case, that a judgment, into which is merged a contract that does not itself provide for interest, will bear interest as may be prescribed by the statute in force when the judgment is entered, whatever may have been the rate of interest upon judgments at the time such contract was made. But it does not follow, when interest is given by a judgment in conformity with the statutes in force when it is rendered, that the right thus acquired can be affected or taken away by subsequent legislation. The difficulty is not met by saying that the allowance of interest upon a judgment is wholly within legislative discretion, and not a matter of agreement between the parties. Rights may be acquired by legislation that cannot be taken away by subsequent enactments. When the judgment in question was rendered, the plaintiff was entitled by statute to require the collection of interest upon the amount recovered from the time of the recovery 'until such amount be paid;' and that right was asserted in the mode prescribed when the plaintiff, by his indorsement on the execution, required the sheriff to collect the amount adjudged, with 7 per cent. interest till paid. Although the contract upon which the judgment was based did not, in terms, provide for interest upon any judgment rendered for its specific performance, it was necessarily implied, in such contract, that the party suing for a breach of it, or suing to compel its specific performance, should receive from the other party the amount judicially ascertained to be due, with such interest, if any, as the law allowed, and as the court legally awarded, at the time judgment might be entered. Indeed, it is an implied condition of every agreement that the party failing to comply with its terms shall be liable to the party injured in such sum as the law will give him at the time the default is adjudged.